Anti-war Activism in the Information Age

About Us

The project is led by Frank Webster (City University), Jenny Pickerill (Leicester University) and Kevin Gillan (Manchester University).

Frank Webster is a Professor of Sociology at City University London where he has worked since 2003. Before that he was at the University of Birmingham and Oxford Brookes University. He has written a lot about the character of the Information Society over the last twenty years or so. More recently he has researched journalists reporting war with Howard Tumber, another Professor of Sociology at City. Their book, Journalists under Fire: Information War and Journalistic Practices is published by Sage in spring 2006. The present project develops from this interest in media and Information War, as well as Frank’s long-term concern for the darker sides of Information Societies.

Jenny Pickerill is interested in understandings of collective action, participation, spaces of dialogue, autonomy and anarchism as possibilities and contested pathways towards environmental and social justice. She explores these themes as a researcher, teacher and through daily practices. She has been involved in a variety of different campaigns in Britain and Australia. She is currently a lecturer in human geography at the University of Leicester and has published a book and a number of journal articles on internet activism, alter-globalisation movements and environmental politics.

Kevin Gillan is interested in the role of political ideas and communication in social movements. His PhD thesis, Meaning in Movement examines the variety of beliefs that motivate protesters, and inform the particular methods they use to create social change. Participation in, and observation of, the social forum and anti-war movements over the past few years have given him a particular interest in the workings of coalitions that cut across more traditional ideological boundaries, wherein it appears possible for Trotskyists, anarchists, christian socialists and liberals all to work together.